A little planning can pay off literally and figuratively for beef producers as we enter the fall and winter months, starting with pregnancy checking your herd.
There are several reasons to preg check, including monitoring the herd’s health and reproductive status. Having more open cows than usual can be a sign of disease, such as bovine viral diarrhea or a sexually transmitted disease that causes cows to abort. Then there is the economic reason heading into the winter months. A pregnancy exam for one cow costs an average $5, but to feed that cow, if open, through the winter would be $100-200. If you have multiple open cows still around through the winter, the math adds up quickly. Additionally, non-pregnant cows sold in August generally weigh more and would hit the market when prices are seasonally higher.
The traditional method of preg checking cattle is via palpation. Pregnancy can be detected as early as 35 days by feeling the uterus, ovaries and uterine arteries through the rectal wall. Experienced veterinarians, such as ours, can estimate stage of pregnancy with approximate calving date between 30 and 100 days with a fair amount of accuracy. Nevertheless, there is a small risk of spreading disease from one cow to another with palpation.
An ultrasound can detect pregnancy as early as 13 days after breeding and can provide more information than palpation such as viability of the fetus, incidence of twins and gender. However, the ultrasound method is more expensive and requires electricity and equipment. It is less stressful to the cow and fetus and exerts less wear and tear on the practitioner.
A blood test was developed by a veterinarian in Idaho in the early 2000s to detect a protein produced by the placenta in ruminant animals. The blood test is cheaper than the ultrasound, more accurate than the palpation along with less invasive for the cow. The blood test does have a two to three-day turnaround time for results and doesn’t allow for determining the stage of pregnancy, so if speed or timing is important for you to know, this method may not be the right choice for your herd.
If it’s time to prep your herd for the fall/winter season, contact us to discuss your options for pregnancy checking and open cows.